


These Changing Times

by HC_Weatherfield



Series: The Celery Fields (An Ineffable Wives!verse) [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: COVID-19, Current Events, F/F, I'm sorry but I had to cope somehow, In This Household We Love And Support Mary Seacole, Ineffable Wives, Nurse Aziraphale, Protesting, anarchist Crowley, it's just fluff I wrote to make myself feel better, oh and I better tag, there's really not much going on in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:21:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HC_Weatherfield/pseuds/HC_Weatherfield
Summary: Though she is not in quarantine, Aziraphale finds that the events of 2020 still have an effect on her perception of time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Celery Fields (An Ineffable Wives!verse) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1469984
Kudos: 18





	These Changing Times

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is. I have been bedridden all week with a case of Schrodinger's Virus (the test results have not come through even though I'm already recovering), and this is what my favorite lesbian-shaped beings had to say to me about all that.
> 
> It cheered me up. I hope it does the same for you.

One delightful thing about an endless existence was that there was always something new to learn. Even after the unpocalypse and the subsequent consummation of six thousand years’ hereditary enmity with her cosmic counterpart, Aziraphale was consistently pleased to find undiscovered countries stretching before her in every direction.

Her lesson in the changeable nature of time did not, it was true, come in the best of circumstances. But it was a thing worth knowing, nonetheless.

***

“My dear,” announced Aziraphale, looking like an avenging Sufragette in her pintucked shirtwaist and a canvas face mask last used circa 1918, “you most certainly do _not_.”

“Don’t what, Angel?” Crowley asked casually, a helpless (uncovered) grin taking over her face at the sight of her beloved.

Aziraphale, in high dudgeon and not at all grinning in return (the scrunching at the corner of her eyes being entirely coincidental, as far as anyone could prove), pointed a dimpled finger at the sign Crowley held, which read, "I NEED A HAIRCUT."

“Ah,” said Crowley. “Never do, do I? Rather beside the point.”

“And _what_ ,” Aziraphale hissed, “precisely,” jabbing her finger into Crowley’s shoulder, “ _is_ the point?”

Crowley gestured lazily to the pinch-faced crowd behind her--a crowd which was retreating further away as their unwanted resident ‘odd bird’ became further embroiled in a domestic with what appeared to be a germophobic schoolmarm.

“Chaos,” Crowley explained. “‘Sides, bit funny, innit? They’re never on their own side.”

“I don’t think it’s _funny_ at all,” said Aziraphale crisply.

“ _You_ wouldn’t,” Crowley acknowledged with a wince.

“Soon enough,” Aziraphale plowed on, “you will fail to see the humor in this situation as well.”

“Will I.”

“You will.” Aziraphale leaned toward Crowley, batting the sign out of the way so she could whisper in her ear. “How would you like to go a decade without sex.”

Crowley gasped. “You couldn’t.”

“I assure you I could.”

“You’d get bored.”

“I have my books.”

“You have your--” Crowley cut herself off with a deeply offended noise. “Why, just for that, I ought to--”

“I know you won’t,” Aziraphale countered.

Crowley melted a little at that, because, well--it was true. Crowley _wouldn’t_. With a heavy sigh, she tossed her sign over her shoulder; there was an offended shriek as it hit one of the protesters, and Aziraphale looked almost pleased.

“Well, I was putting it off,” Crowley said in a good show of nonchalance, “but I suppose there’s not much fun left to be had here anyway.”

“Putting... _what_ off?” Aziraphale inquired with vague suspicion.

Crowley produced a black bandana, seemingly from her pocket, and began to tie it over her nose and mouth.

“I’m going to America.”

“Dear me,” said Aziraphale, and no amount of covering could hide the way her nose wrinkled at the thought. “Whatever for?”

***

Crowley did not, in the end, tell Aziraphale what had possessed her to brave the savage wilds of America. But Aziraphale figured she’d find out soon enough, one way or the other. And in the meantime, she had plenty of work to do in her position as freelance ministering angel.

She showed up in the makeshift field hospitals where overflow patients awaited the next available breathing machines, and she presented the apparent credentials of a respectable, retired nurse. Oh, she knew a little bit here and there about medical science, but none of it was more up to date than, say, mid-century. Mostly she held hands, dabbed foreheads, and miracled anybody she could get a moment alone with.

And if her quiet moments were punctuated with the occasional wistful sigh? Well, it was just that all the rushing about and caretaking reminded her of the little flirtation she’d once had with the truly astonishing Mary Seacole. Oh, she’d loved Mary, and while that was true of all of humanity, it was especially true of her.

So that was what she was sighing about, naturally. Not the absence of a certain demon, whose presence had been markedly unappreciated in this trying atmosphere.

Love of her existence, or not.

***

When she returned to the bookshop one evening, Aziraphale could not hide her delight to see that Crowley was there. A month was nothing, in the scheme of their existences; even Aziraphale’s threatened decade was barely a blink to them.

Except, apparently, when it came to the absence of one’s lover.

“Get this,” said Crowley, without waiting for Aziraphale to greet her. “Tear gas doesn’t affect demons.”

“If holy water doesn’t so much as sting,” said Aziraphale slyly, “I doubt a little man-made poison is going to slow you down.”

“True enough.”

They looked at each other, breathlessly. Crowley looked disreputable and entirely at home, draped on Aziraphale’s couch with her black bandana pushed down under her chin, the sides of her head shaved in the incomprehensible modern fashion, dressed head to toe in unseasonable black and fitted with combat boots whose laces formed pentagrams, because she could not be _stopped_ , the dear thing.

“My dear,” said Aziraphale, “have you been fighting a tyrannical regime on behalf of an oppressed group in order to eliminate human suffering from the world?”

“More _alongside_ than on behalf,” said Crowley modestly. “And it was great fun, you know; what sort of demon would I be if I didn’t rage against the, er, machine, as it were? All about disobedience, we are.”

“What sort of demon indeed,” Aziraphale agreed fondly.

“Great fans of the Bible,” said Crowley meaningfully. “Those American tyrants. Quoting it left and right, holding it up in photos. Really, it’s my infernal duty to oppose them.”

“It certainly is,” said Aziraphale, somber.

“You’re...not angry?” Crowley ventured. “That I insist on continuing with my wicked ways? Tempting poor innocent humans and sowing seeds of discord?”

“Oh, furious,” said Aziraphale through a sunny grin. “Once again, my dear, I have failed to thwart your wiles. I am inconsolable.”

“Well,” said Crowley, “at least let me _try_ to console you, then. Now I just feel responsible.” And she spread her legs ever so slightly, tilting her head invitingly.

Aziraphale was in her lap faster than any human could have crossed the room. They melted into each other as eagerly as if they had been parted for centuries.

They did not, as it happened, go a decade without sex. Rather the opposite.

Hours later, when they were both deep in their cups, Aziraphale put forth a suggestion that they lock up the bookshop for the following decade and occupy themselves solely with each other.

“You see, my dear,” said Aziraphale, “I have this theory about time. I think it speeds up when we’re together, and slows down when we’re apart.”

“That would be just like Her sense of humor,” Crowley grumbled.

“Well, in the interest of scientific inquiry, I thought we ought at the very least to gather more qualitative evidence from which to make our judgment.”

Crowley snorted. “ _You_ want to do _science_?”

“What can I say, my dear?” Aziraphale said with a doting smile. “You bring out my intellectual curiosity.”

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. I'm still (always) taking requests for further (and, I promise, more robust) entries in the series. Let me know what you'd like to see.
> 
> P.P.S. Wear your mask, give money to Black artists, punch a racist. Be the change, and all that.
> 
> P.P.P.S. And yes, the title is from a Jackson Browne song.


End file.
